Debbie Reese
Episode 12: To the Classroom
May 8, 2023
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Debbie, thank you so much for being here today. It's an honor to be in conversation with you.
Debbie Reese:
Thanks Jennifer. I'm glad to be here.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
So I would love to begin by talking about A I C L, the American Indians in Children's Literature website. I visit it often. I've been looking at resources that you have on there for years, but for those who are listening who may not have yet explored it, can you tell us a little bit about what they can find there?
Debbie Reese:
Okay. American Indians in Children's literature is the method I chose to share the information I have with teachers and librarians and parents and anyone interested in children's books. As academics, we write for publications that are often only available to people who can afford subscriptions to major journals or memberships and associations. I wanted to reach others with my research. So I traded this blog and I do two primary things there. One is I talk about native writers and native people, nationhood culture, all these things that I want people to know about so that they can make better choices when they're selecting books to use in their classrooms. But I also talk about problems in classic and popular and much loved children's books. That is because when I was teaching a social studies methods course at the University of Illinois, one of my students was teaching about native people and that was going to be was the unit she developed for her classroom, early childhood classroom.
And on the playground, after she did her unit, the kids were running around doing this whooping sound, woo woo woo. And she stopped them and said, what are you doing? And they said, she said, what did we just learn? And they said, what? And they said, we're not being Native Americans, we're being Indian. And so what that signaled to me was that a lot of the content that people have in their heads and hearts that comes from children's books is an Indian we talk about good books and good content, it doesn't even touch that unless we say this is not okay. So I try and do those two things.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
How do you hope classroom teachers use it?
Debbie Reese:
I hope classroom teachers will read what I have to say about Island of the Blue Dolphins, for example, or Little House on the Prairie and decide not to use the book with children. That's a primary takeaway because a lot of what I know happens is that there are native kids in classrooms across the country and those kids are being harmed by the content that they are being given by their teacher. Now we kind of go to school trusting teachers, parents send their kids to school, trusting that their teachers will do right by them. But that's not the case for a lot of children in the United States. The default student is white and people think that if it's good enough for a white child, it's good enough for everybody. And lot of the content is not good for anybody. Stereotypical images hurts native children and it misinforms non-native children.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
We trust our teachers, they trusted their teachers and we also trust children's book awards. These are some, in some cases, award-winning literature that you are rightfully calling out as being problematic or giving cautions around. Children's Book awards, how in what ways can we be influencing the ways that those who decide what books get awards are not causing harm to children?
Debbie Reese:
I think that one of the things that teachers can do or parents, anybody really is to use social media. Now in the last few years it's become very hard to be on social media and speaking up about injustice and misrepresentation. But I think that is a powerful tool. I know it is. I know it is because it has made publishers pay attention. Many books that were going to come out were withdrawn or pulled or edited. Change happens when people speak out. So as teachers, I think that this body of people we call teachers has tremendous power and influence and they can make change happen.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
I'm wondering what you've noticed over the last decade or so with regards to any changes that have been made. You've published so many scholarly articles about diversity and representation in children's literature. So over the last decade, have you noticed any positive shifts in publishing?
Debbie Reese:
Sure. Absolutely. Because I think what we see here in the United States is that we finally have an imprint from a major publisher that is Harper Collins who has the Heart Drum imprint now that is publishing books by native writers. We've never had that before from a major polisher, and that's within the last five years. Cynthia Lystic Smith, who is Muskogee Creek is a key reason for that imprint coming to life to, and it's giving us so many wonderful books. Each year since it started, there have been more and more books published by native writers. And that's a huge change. That's a huge shift because not only are there more books, there are more names to know. And that's a key piece because if we go back to maybe 15 years ago, it was the same names over and over very few at all, but the same names over and over. And now you see more names and more tribal nations being represented in children's publishing.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
And what do we still need to be doing?
Debbie Reese:
We have good books, but kids don't see them as books about native people because the weight of the problematic content is heavy. And so teachers really have to hit very hard on that so that they can displace that and come to know us for who we actually are.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Let's talk a little bit about critical literacy. You talk about in your 2018 paper "Critical Indigenous Literacies," you say that critical literacy encourages children to read between the lines and ask questions when engaging with literature I would say probably adults too, right? Teachers who are choosing the literature should benefit from engaging with these same questions. Whose story is this? Who benefits from this story? Whose voices are not being heard?
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Can you share some examples of what this could look like in practice?
Debbie Reese:
I think that when we start that early on with kids, helping them to ask questions about the things in front of them, oh, it will come. And an example of, there was an NPR article I listened to last week. They were doing an episode about children's books and marketing and the economy. And I don't remember some of the nuts and bolts about why they were doing it in this way, but one of the books they chose was The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss, who is of course has a lot of problematic books. But anyway, they were using the Sneetches and they have stars on their belly. And so the teacher was reading this aloud to the kids, and these are little kids and one of them says, oh, that's like, it was a long time ago when some people were treated bad and it wasn't fair because it just wasn't fair. But about the color of their skin came into the conversation. So kids were aware and they were questioning, that's not what the teacher was after, but they were questioning the content of the story.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Yeah, I think if we really want kids to understand what's in the book and to think beyond the book, I see these questions as a way to support students abstract, inferential thinking, and to go beyond the text in a way that the book then takes on this deeper understanding of the text that means something beyond just the time that I'm spending reading it.
Debbie Reese:
I guess part of it is that I don't want teachers to use those books in their classroom. I want the teachers to read the book beforehand and then not use it rather than find themselves in a situation in the classroom where a child or the teacher is saying, oh heck, look this is a stereotype of an American Indian, and stop the reading and talk about that. And bringing these questions about who benefits from that? Why did the writer do that? Trying to understand the roots of some of these things. I think that's what these questions can do. Did so-and-so writer intend to hurt native kids? Obviously not. They didn't know. Did teachers intend to hurt somebody by using that? No, they didn't know. But the massive amount of it out there still helps us to know that we really need to be talking about it and making different choices. So these hurts don't continue.
This morning I did a blog post. This nostalgic gets in the way. I, Jennifer, I'm rambling because these images, images of native people have such a grip on people that they can't hard to let them go. So it's very hard for people to let go of either of the blue dolphins for this morning's blog post I was, yesterday, I was on Facebook and I saw that a book that came out in 1952 called Dr. Squash The Doll Doctor as a little golden book written by Margaret Margaret Wise Brown, who did the bunny book, the Goodnight Moon book that got reissued in 2010. It has stereo it a Mamy, the original has a mamy and a Mexican stereotype, and it has a native stereotype in it. It got reissued in 2010 as an ebook with new illustrations. They took out the mamy, they took out the Mexican sombrero mustache doll, but they left the native one in there, changed it a little bit, but left it in there and that, I think that was 2010 people could understand the mammy and the Mexican stereotype, but not the native one. And the illustrator was able to redraw that. It's the massiveness of this lack of knowing that I'm trying to say that when we're asking questions, when we're trying to be critical, when we're teaching kids to be critical, I think that's the only way we're going to get to a place where there is less of that.
Debbie Reese:
And I think it has to be taught at a higher level in college courses or in high school critical media literacy. Because I think I truly do think that trying to teach that some of that to younger children it's hard. I think it can be done, but it should not be done using a children's book because essentially what we're doing is asking native and children of color to carry the weight of the white child's unlearning of stereotypes. So the white child is gaining tremendously at, and then other children are carrying that weight in order for the good outcome for the white children. I don't know how to say that without sounding like that, but
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
No, I think that that directness is appreciated and I think it's an important message. Absolutely. Okay. Let's talk about in another article, you talk about some key takeaways that teachers should consider when rethinking the use of native stories or any stories involving native people in classrooms. And I'm, there's four big ideas here. I'm just going to name them. And if you wouldn't mind talking a little bit, elaborating a little bit about them. I think they're really important messages that everyone can think about. The first one is that when teachers are selecting children's literature, you encourage them to choose books that are tribally specific. You've talked a little bit about this already, but can you elaborate a bit on that big idea?
Debbie Reese:
Yeah. When you chose books that are tribally specific, you're pushing against the idea that there is a monolithic native person that we all look the same. And tribally specific books push against that by naming tribes, by naming a place. And that is usually something that teachers don't know. And so they can start to research that in order to do a better job at presenting the content to the kids in their classroom. So they're growing what kids know about specific nations when they're being tribally specific.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Number two, you say to use present tense verbs to talk about Native nations.
Debbie Reese:
Using present tense verbs when you're talking about native writers, native nations, native people, helps undo that idea that we exist only in the past. So to couple that with the third item, which is choosing books by native writers, you would be saying, Hey, we're going to read this book today. The title is Jingle Dancer. It is by Cynthia Le Smith. Here is her website. And of course I'm playing with the word is a little bit there as I'm saying these things but they matter. Those, that two letter word is extremely powerful because it pulls us out of the past. So using present tense verbs is really important. You could also say, here is Cynthia's website and show that native people use technology because that is one of the things that people are very surprised about. You mean you have websites, you have technology, and it's like these are seemingly ridiculous things, but they are actual experiences that native people have. These things come to us all the time. You have a phone, you have a website, okay. Yeah. It just doesn't compute because of the weight of the misinformation that people carry around.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Number four, you say, of course, to use books by native writers all year round. That one kind of speaks for itself. But if you want to say a few more words about that,
Debbie Reese:
When you look at native people on social media, they were talking, they talk about dreading the fall because in the fall football season starts, so we have lots of football teams with derogatory names for their teams. We have Columbus Day coming up, we have Native American month coming up in November and Thanksgiving, of course in November. All of these things combined to make November and especially burdensome year for native people who are willing to speak at events and conferences, at podcasts or whatever. There's an overwhelming sense of, but you know what? I'm here all year round. I can talk to you in April. And it's really my effort to say, we are who we are every day, all year round. Don't confine this to the month of November. Bring native content into your classroom all year round, because the non-native, the white child in your classroom, that child's identity is affirmed all year round just by default. Just because that's the way society is. Native kids should have that too. Their identity, African American kids, native black kids, all the kids in our classroom, their identity should be affirmed every day in the classroom.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Thank you. And let me just stop by saying I've appreciated this conversation so deeply. Thank you for being so just clear and direct with your messages and such practical takeaways. Can you share how people can reach out to you to invite you to speak at their school or conference or how they can follow you on social media to stay in touch, to continue to learn from you?
Debbie Reese:
They can look for my website, American Indians In Children's literature.
Debbie Reese:
It will come up and there is a contact tab there, so they can find my email address there and write to me that way. I'm Deb Reese on Twitter, when I do actual presentations with teachers, I have some concrete takeaways that I want them to have when they leave the session they spent with me. And those are simple. Those are like, I want teachers who've spent time with me to be able to name three native writers so that they'll have those writers in their head the next time they're trying to choose books about native people. They'll have those writers names in their head. And another one is be able to name three or four tribal nations, whether those are nations that are in their general area or elsewhere. The ability to name them I think is very important. So trying to have concrete takeaways for teachers so that they can move away from the more abstract conversation that I think we had here today into a real concrete one is something I want to see happen. Oh, thank you for inviting me. I hope it was useful.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
It definitely was. And I think it just hopefully will spark in people an awareness to learn more and to continue engaging with you and your work to continue growing. So thank you so much for joining me.
Debbie Reese:
Thank you, Jennifer.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
I'm joined now by my colleagues Molly Wood, Angie Ferrero, Lanie Powell. What did you all think? What ideas do you have that we could bring to the classroom right away?
Molly Wood:
One thing that I was thinking about is the space that we have to leave for children to talk and ask questions.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
And I think that not only do we need to have time for kids to talk, but we need teachers who are knowledgeable and capable of fielding questions and helping to guide conversations in ways that are not harmful. That's something else I was thinking about too.
Angie Forero:
I, I'll just jump in. I thought it was such a powerful conversation, and there's so much just to talk about. I thought it was when Debbie was talking about out of the Blue Dolphins and the importance about how teachers need to hit hard against these stereotypes, and we have to think about different ways to disrupt the weight of the problematic content working with teachers who are in middle school and high school. One thing I think teachers might ask is how do we make sure that we're addressing all of this in the independent books students are reading? Because we can't I guess,anticipate all of the texts. And maybe this touches upon what you were saying, Molly having that space. So I don't know if maybe we can open that up as conversation around how do we support our students when we come across, let's say we're in an independent reading conference and we see oh, they're reading this book and it's very problematic and I don't only want to support this reader, but maybe bring this up to other readers in the class. So I don't know if maybe we can talk a little bit about that.
Molly Wood:
Well, I was noticing I was very excited because yesterday my copy of the 2.0 Reading Strategies Book arrived. So I was very excited about that. And I mean, there's a lot in there, Jen, obviously, as you know, cause you wrote it, but about critical literacies and a lot of the research links on the strategies around identifying social issues. And I marked another one while you two were in conversation about recognizing research and recognize the author's authority and bias.And so it's having maybe the massiveness that Deb Debbie described, this massiveness of this huge problem, are there specifically that teachers can create that space or be prepared? And some of them are
Molly Wood:
strategies that are focusing on the skills of analyzing texts and the author's perspective and bias, having those on hand, inviting kids into ask those questions or try those strategies against different books or with different books in the classroom library. But I think so much of that just I obviously is around, is related to the text the kids have in their classrooms. So I think how do we help kids and teachers look more closely at the author and the message and the characters and know that it's important?
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Thinking about this, there's this interrelated task of text selection, careful text selection, showing accurate, not harmful representation together with strategies or questions that kids can ask themselves to be critical. But the other piece of it that's also critical is prior knowledge. So unless there is a history curriculum, a social studies curriculum, whatever you want to call it, unless the teacher is knowledgeable I think you can get into trouble just even just using strategies with any book, especially books that have stereotypical representations. I mean, how would a child know, know if they don't have the content knowledge about Native Nations, if they don't have the content knowledge about specific tribes, if they don't have the content knowledge about history? What I'm trying to think about now is that this history is not prioritized in every classroom.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
You need some background knowledge. We know that from research to be able to latch onto, ask the right questions and think more deeply about it.
Lainie Powell:
I'm even thinking about, especially for older kids, and this might work K -5 too, I don't know Molly say, tell me what you think. But the list of the four considerations when choosing indigenous books, even sharing that with maybe upper grades kids or W six through 12 kids and saying, let's go into our own libraries or into our culture. Even unpacking the definition of text, looking at things you see on TV or in the news, or even in print too, images and looking at those parameters that you shared about, are they tribal specific, present tense verbs, by native authors, taught you around letting kids use that as they filter through the texts around them.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
I love that idea, Lainie and Angie too. This idea of directing children to that site directly or engaging them and helping critically evaluate the texts that are, in some cases, it's not the teacher selecting text, it's in a textbook, in a anthology or something. So when there are texts that no one's choosing necessarily, well, I guess the district chose the textbook program, but to really ask critically those questions. Angie, have you used that site with middle schoolers? I would love to hear about that.
Angie Forero:
Just very simply of bringing up the site, having them just look at the tabs at the top and think about what interests them and what are some recommendations. And then there's a tab at the top of books not to read but in middle school I definitely curated different sites and author websites and had students look for authors that they hadn't normally considered. And getting a sense of who the author is and what types of books that they write is really powerful. So really just perusing the site is all I really thought of. But if anyone has another idea, I'd love to hear it.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
Molly, any thoughts on that?
Molly Wood:
Yeah. Well, I'm thinking about on Debbie's website is a link to Native Knowledge 360. And so that worksheet for selecting Native American children's literature is something I've shared with teachers before. And I love the idea of sharing it.
JENNIFER SERRAVALLO:
I think we'll stop there for today. You all have been so generous with your time. I really appreciate you all joining me. Thank you so much.